"I have been giving thought to the dwarven stronghold and what that ghost told us, and there are some things that just do not seem to make sense to me.

Given the size of the stronghold, if that's what it was, there were many dwarves. The size of the force that killed them must have been huge. We know that there were a decent amount of Suwhatevers, as we fought them too. We sustained some casualties, but not many. There must have either been many more of them, or more hobgoblins than them.

I find it strange that there would have been any conflict between the suwhatevers and the dwarves at all. For these things to have left their waters to go fight in the mountains, there must have been some serious motivation.

Secondly, I can see not reason for such a conflict. There must have been something for them to gain by killing the dwarves, but what? They obviously didn't want the stronghold, because they would have cleared the bodies and most likely desecrated the statues."

Elberrin thinks on this for a few moments and says "The Dwarves had said that it was strange that the steam room was there, as it is not something a dwarf would use. I rather doubt that a hobgoblin would care much about it either, but the Suhagin on the other hand might... The stonework was clearly dwarven, but why would they build a steam room for the suhagin? Perhaps they wanted the platnum vien that is rumored to be on this isle, which would be mined by dwarves. Maybe the suhagin took over the stronghold and enslaved the dwarves?"

The thought was odd and Elberrin seemed far from convinced of that. "Do the Suhagin even CARE about money like that?"

"True enough, brother elf, true enough. Keep me up to date on the Dwarven Keep. As soon as things get a bit boring in there give me a heads up, I'll have Azarian give you the details on your underwater adventure." Ivellious said with a smile. He deftly surrounded Elberrin's knife on the target with arrows, all in two blinks of an eye.

Elberrin put on a slightly mischievous grin. "In honesty I am curious, I have never been beneath any water for any length of time. Sounds very interesting. My reason for coming here is to learn. what better thing to learn from than something I've got no experience with?"

?Tretorn, Azarian and I had a long conversation this morning. Tretorn spent the entire night reading the book you found. It appears that the Sahuagin and the Hobgoblins were in league with each other, but get this,? he paused, looking up at Elberrin to get his reaction. ?It?s because they were slaves.?

?It appears,? he continued,? that some aquatic race held sway over tens of thousands of both races. Not only that, but this same race was able to mentally dominate many of the dwarves as well. Tretorn is still pouring over the rest of the book to see if we can find out how.?

He fired another arrow, and Elberrin threw another dagger. They had walked away from the beach and setup a couple of crate tops to feign that they were just target practicing.

?That?s the bad news. The good news is that Azarian believes that the master race has either left the area or perished.? Ivellious said. He then stepped closer to Elberrin and said in a hushed tone.

?Between you and me,? he said and Elberrin nodded.

?Azarian knows this because he actually did find a fortress deep under the water in Outpost Bay. He hasn?t been able to explore it yet, but found no evidence of life in its depths. But get this, he took aside Barendd Rumnaheim, the dwarf mason guild leader, and described the underwater construction. Barendd gave him the answer he expected, it was dwarven construction.?